Taking its ‘Toll’ on the Public? – ConspiracyOz

A botched billing system upgrade at toll road operator Transurban could be leaving some NSW motorists paying road tolls for strangers.

The company’s call centre in the Philippines has been advising Transurban’s NSW Roam customers that a system upgrade on June 29 has led to a large number of billing errors. In some cases, car registration details have been added to accounts incorrectly, the call centre has advised.

Late last week the call centre was advising Roam customers that the errors were “known issues” affecting a large number of accounts.

Transurban’s billing system has also been randomly charging customers for unrequested paper statement fees, which appear on Roam bills as a “detailed statement fee”.

A Transurban spokesman confirmed that the company had detected a problem with its billing system last Thursday. The spokesman conceded that the error had led to some customers being issued paper account statements and charged a fee.

“Last month some Roam customers who would normally receive their account statement electronically were issued a paper statement, incurring a $1.00 fee. Roam has since identified and reversed that fee,” the spokesman said.

However, Transurban declined to reveal whether it had detected any incidents of customers being charged tolls for vehicles incorrectly linked to their accounts.

Transurban recently apologised to customers of its Victoria toll operation CityLink for incorrectly suspending their accounts.

In that case Transurban also said that the account suspension errors were due to a system upgrade, according to Neil Mitchell’s 3AW News Talk program.

A caller to the program complained that his account was suspended despite having set up an automated direct debit against his bank account.

The caller told the program that a call centre operator informed him that the system upgrades caused the system to fail.

“Customers are encouraged to contact Roam on 13 8655 if they have any queries about their account,” Transurban’s spokesman said.